


You'd wash your hands of them, but blood's always thicker

by CourtneyCourtney



Series: family is family [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Big Brother Jesse McCree, Brother-Sister Relationships, Character Study, Families of Choice, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Jesse McCree is Smart, References to Depression, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-20 01:57:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13136742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CourtneyCourtney/pseuds/CourtneyCourtney
Summary: "Did you have a sister?" Fareeha asks finally. "Before. The way you talk sometimes." There's a smile in her voice, but something sadder, too. Rueful. "You're good at bluffing, Jesse, but nobody's that good."Jesse stares at the ceiling, mentally tracing the web-like cracks above his hospital bed just to be looking at something else. He swallows hard. "I used to, yeah."





	You'd wash your hands of them, but blood's always thicker

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Feliz Navidad](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9052588) by [Ora (Finale)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Finale/pseuds/Ora). 



> **Me @ Me** : This timeline makes no sense. Also you can't just sew thirty fan theories into a single story.  
>  **Me, shotgunning a beer** : Fuckin' watch me.
> 
> I took quite a few cues from _Feliz Navidad_ for this story (except from McCree's perspective, obviously) so read that first. One scene in this story is also Jesse’s POV of a scene in my other fic, _what did you do to my eyes..._ , but you don’t need to have read that first to understand this bit.
> 
> Check [dat video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44bA552Nr5A) where Carolina Ravassa as Sombra says McCree is like a big brother to her -- #foreshadowing. I think Blizz is driving at _something_ , what with the 2016 Christmas comic, the Castillo map, the "child prodigy who joined a gang" parallels, the lines about drinking, the skull icons for their ults... That or it's all a coincidence and I need to lay off the sauce. (Watch them wind up being, like, a couple and I have to delete myself off the entire Internet out of shame.) At any rate, this is all four seconds away from being Jossed, so enjoy it while you can!
> 
> Still flip-flopping on tagging this "Biracial McCree" or "Latino McCree" because I'm not sure which I think he is exactly. I kind of think McCree is his real surname though since he goes by that instead of his first name like every other character without a codename.
> 
> Title from Kacey Musgraves' "Family is Family" because why the fuck not?

 

María was five when she disappeared. When Joel lost her, he thinks when he’s at his lowest. He knows it logically, that there was only so much he could do under the threat of an omnic attack. Doesn't mean he don't take it personal, though.

It's a tricky thing, the memory. Seems like the harder he tries to forget, the brighter the images burn. The orange and red of their neighborhood in flames. The smell of acrid smoke, and sounds, all the sounds fighting for space among the rubble, omnic gunfire sharp amid their screams. All the nightmarish details he can recall, but the part he really needs to remember is buried under feet of rubble like what used to be their family.

He had been twelve, had been strong enough to haul his sister away from the worst of it, but somewhere he must've tripped. Somewhere in the chaos María's hand slipped out of his. Somewhere they got separated, and Joel doesn't remember when or how, doesn't remember why he'd come to alone with a  _federal_  who tells Joel his sister isn’t one of the survivors they’ve turned up.

He runs himself ragged trying to remember where they split up, where exactly it was he let go of her hand. He can't find it anywhere in his mind.

 

*****

 

It's a tricky thing, memory. He forgets about her without even trying to. That’s what Joel tells himself, anyway. All the good stuff slips like sand through his fingers.

(He would've gone back and fought for her, and some days he blames himself for not looking harder, for not turning every charred brick over by hand. It doesn't matter that he was a kid himself; he was supposed to be looking out for her. He should've fought the system. Hell, he would've even let her go if it meant she got to be alive.)

He doesn't remember hoofing it to the border. He knows he kept his head down, kept moving, and nobody stopped him. They knew his kind. How many boys were there like him, boys with no name passing through towns that met similar ruined ends? There's thousands like him. He ain't nobody special.

He crosses into the States on his thirteenth birthday, spends a few weeks homeless and drifting before Deadlock offers him better.

He doesn’t give them his real name. He’s wary, no matter what they say about being family and him not having to fend for himself ever again, so the gang calls him “ _Ese_ ” until they literally can’t anymore, until McCree gives them the letter “J” to tack on the front.

Jesse -- it’s a good name for an outlaw, McCree thinks. It suits him, and he lets it take, lets Joel be eroded. Ain’t nobody out there lookin’ for his sorry ass anyway.

Still, the past hangs there. María’s in the back of his mind, trailing him the way she used to in person. He tries to block her out, shrink her the way the high noon sun makes the shadows smaller. He changes, and changes again, keeping his head down and plowing forward until he’s changing once more, alone in a box with a man who answers to Commander though his position don’t technically exist.

("An' what kind of bullshit global defense org goes around recruitin' sixteen, seventeen-year-olds?" Jesse asks when the offer is first made, figuring it's best to be upfront about a reservation or two this time.

("That kind that won't hesitate to sentence a seventeen-year-old to life in prison instead," the man replies.

(“Fair ‘nuff,” Jesse says to keep from screaming. "You got those scars 'cause you’re in charge, or are you in charge 'cause you got those scars?"

(Big Boss Man raises an eyebrow. "You wanna find out?"

(Jesse does.)

She doesn't catch up to him fully until he's in training an ocean away, in over his head but enjoying it. There's tons of recruits McCree's age; eighteen is hardly uncommon (even if _Jefe_ had to bump his records up a year to make Jesse look a bit more legit), and most of them are tall and built enough to pass for adults like Jesse, but there's some stragglers. There always are.

This girl isn't one of them, though.

Jesse feels like he's had a bucket of ice water dumped over his head, like he looked at a full eclipse. There's a girl in the mess hall. Captain Amari's daughter, someone tells him, as if he wouldn't've figured it out seeing them together, damn near identical as they were. But she's obviously, _painfully_ young, and McCree is frozen in his tracks. Is that what María would have been like at her age? How old would his sister be now? Is that how she would act, how she would dress?

He doesn't run out of the room, but it's a near thing.

She's easy enough to avoid. She doesn't live on one base, rotating between parents and stations, just like Jesse doesn't stay in one location for long. Plus he didn't get this far in life by being a shit liar.

("I don't like kids," Jesse snaps when Agent Marquez won't stop needling him about being scared of a little girl. Half the people in the briefing room turn to stare at him.

("Fascinating as that lame-ass excuse was," Reyes says after a minute, "we all have better things to be focusing on, and I didn't see any of you shitheads taking notes on my last point. Let's run this again.")

 

*****

 

His luck runs short a year and a half in. It’s dumbest fucking thing, an op gone not even bad enough to be considered sideways. Not in Jesse’s estimation, at least. So what if he dislocated his hip and ripped up a bunch of ligaments in his right foot? He’d powered through worse with Deadlock, and thanks to Overwatch’s advanced tech he’s back up to snuff in an hour. Walking a tad funny, sure, but otherwise fine.

Officially, there’s a waiting period before he can go back in the field. Unofficially, Blackwatch is currently short-staffed. Lately they’ve been sending guys back out in the field before they can get their feet up, just how Jesse likes to operate. He’s itching, actually finished the paperwork from his last go-round in anticipation.

He’s considering actually going in the rec room instead of just loitering outside when he hears Reyes coming down the hall behind him.

“Agent McCree,” _Jefe_ calls. Jesse turns and pulls himself up to full height, recognizing that his boss actually means business based on his address. He knew he was secretly Reyes’ favorite.

“Got a mission for you,” Reyes tells him as he approaches, glancing at the tablet in his hands before he stops.

“Alright,” says Jesse. “Let’s hear it.”

Gabriel’s handheld beeps, taking his attention off Jesse for a second. He frowns down at the screen, tapping at it as he glares back up at McCree. Must be a good mission he needs help with if he’s this wrapped up in it.

“Go check on Amari’s daughter,” says Reyes, “see if she needs help with homework or anything.”

 “Homework,” Jesse repeats, giving his superior the flattest look he can. “You serious.”

Reyes looks back up, arching an eyebrow. He understands but he’s playing dumb. Jesse almost hates him for it. “There a problem?”

“You know there is, boss,” Jesse says, hackles raised. It takes all his willpower to keep his hands from forming fists.

 _Jefe_ scowls back. “Hence my use of the word ‘anything’,” he says slowly, like Jesse’s being thick. “You’re a smart kid.”

"She’s thirteen,” McCree argues. “She's not a kid, she can take care of it herself." Sure, he’s been training with Amari, knows she tolerates him which is the best he can hope for in her book. Sure, she’s “Mama Bear” to everyone under her, but that don’t automatically mean she’s okay with him palling around with her kid.

Reyes crosses his arms over his chest. Jesse knows he was given an order, but so far Gabriel’s let him argue without reproach, so the boss man is at least entertained even if his face doesn’t show it.

“What, like you’re doing anything right now?” Gabriel says. “I got your field report already, you aren’t cleared for physical training again ‘til tomorrow.” He looks Jesse up and down. “Could probably stand to make a new friend.”

Now that smarts, Jesse thinks. He’s not like everyone else, but damn if he isn’t trying twice as hard to prove he belongs, that he’s just as good as the super soldiers and crusaders and teen geniuses. He thought he’d been keeping in step, but apparently Reyes still looks at him and sees a child.

“You serious right now?” McCree asks, blood starting to boil, just a little.

Reyes looks at him, tilts his head to the side and looks some more before talking. “When’s the last time you had a conversation with another person that wasn’t about battle tactics or fieldwork?”

Jesse frowns. “Agent Chang and I – ”

Reyes cuts him off with a wave of his hand. “Maybe I’ll believe whatever bullshit you come up with when you use Chang's first name. Don’t make me ask twice.” He taps McCree on the shoulder with the edge of his tablet. “Can’t have my best agent being afraid of a thirteen-year-old girl, yeah?”

Jesse steels himself to say what he has to say next. "Sir, it ain’t about — "

"I know," says Reyes, expression softening, just a hitch. He extends a broad hand and claps Jesse on the left shoulder. McCree finds he can't meet his eyes. "I do my fucking research," his boss explains, squeezing his shoulder. “Joel.”

Jesse reaches up to slap his hand away.

Reyes puts his hands up in mock surrender. "Alright, alright."

Jesse scowls. “ ‘s what I get for tryna bare my soul around here,” he says as sourly as possible. Reyes' mouth twitches toward an almost-grin as McCree stalks off.

It isn’t until he’s standing outside Amari’s quarters that Jesse realizes he can’t really go in both guns blazing like on the field. This requires a certain amount of delicacy he doesn’t have. He hesitates, thinking of the best way to start, before knocking on the door.

The door slides open a crack, revealing a sliver of a face schooled into a stern expression. One dark eye and one high cheekbone are what McCree sees first. It’s a mug he could see her mother making, though it relaxes just a smidge the longer she stares at him.

“Oh,” says Fareeha, sliding the door open a bit more. “It’s just you.”

“You know me?” Jesse asks before it dawns on him. Anyone higher in the ranks could at any time be the bearer of bad news. They wouldn't send a scrub to tell Captain Amari's daughter that her mom would never be coming home.

“No,” Fareeha replies. “I mean, not really.” Her expression darkens again. “People talk.”

“Uh-huh,” says McCree. He sees it now, what Reyes really sent him to do here. She’s not a kid, but that doesn’t mean she don’t need something to take her mind off her mom, at least for a little while. “You, uh, wanna go into town this afternoon? Get off base for a while?”

Fareeha screws up her face in disgust. “On a date?”

“What?” says Jesse. “Ew, no.” Fareeha’s expression gets darker, and McCree realizes that regardless of the grossness level that probably wasn’t the wisest thing to say to a teenage girl. “I mean, shit.” He runs a hand over his face. On the one hand, if he fucks this up hard enough, Reyes won’t ask him to do it again. On the other hand, he wants the boss to still trust him.

“Look,” McCree says, starting over. “Commander Reyes sent me to – "

“Oh!” Fareeha brightens up, leaning a little further out the doorway to glance into the hallway. “Gabe gave you clearance?” And right, Jesse realizes, he didn’t exactly clear leaving the base with Reyes beforehand.

Fareeha turns halfway back into her room. “I’ll go get my stuff,” she yells over her shoulder.

“You…” Jesse isn’t sure where he’s going with that sentence, so he doesn’t bother finishing it. Rules were made to bent, right? Fareeha's riding on him to get her out of this box; they can go do and ask for forgiveness later.

 

*****

 

"Look," says Fareeha flatly as they approach the movie theater. "It's you."

Jesse stops digging for his wallet and follows the path her finger's pointing at. He sees James Garner with a dopey expression and his finger in the barrel of gun. _Support Your Local Sheriff!_ the poster proclaims. A Western, a shallow one he’s seen bits and pieces of before.

"Oh ha ha," Jesse snarks. “ ’s too retro, even by my standards. What else is playin’?”

Fareeha wrinkles her nose, expression colored with skepticism. "Too bad," she retorts, "because that's the movie I want to see."

"Okay," says Jesse. "Now you're just bein' spiteful."

"You said I could pick the movie," Fareeha says, throwing her hands up. "That's the movie I'm picking."

" _Fine_ ," says Jesse, only partly because the people around them are starting to glare.

They go, and it’s exactly as hokey as Jesse remembers, but it _is_ funny, and Fareeha is more into it than he thought she’d be. Might finally be someone on base who shares his tastes in entertainment, even if she is a kid. 

“Anything else you wanna do while we’re out?” McCree finds himself asking as they walk back out into town.

"I don't know," Fareeha replies, looking up and down the streets, seeing what there is to see. "What did you do for fun when you were my age?”

Jesse cracks up. “Nothing that wouldn’t have one of us in jail an’ one of us skinned alive by Reyes by the end of the night.”

Fareeha looks back at Jesse, eyes big as dinner plates, and shit. He thought she knew, but of course Amari wouldn’t’ve told her everything, would she. He stops.

“I mean, uh.” Jesse waits for his brain to catch up to his mouth. “Whatever you have in mind is fine.”

"Can I drive part of the way back to base?" Fareeha asks without preamble.

"Sure," says Jesse. Why not? He was driving when he was her age, and Fareeha seems miles more responsible than he was then. It's a military-grade vehicle, so it should be pretty damn safe, and if they do get in a scrape Jesse's already figuring he can take the rap, what with his bum foot and all. " 's long as I get to pick what we listen to."

Fareeha grins like she's just gotten away with something. The smugness comes down a little as she seems to pick up on Jesse's last sentence.

"So..." she asks hesitantly, "you like music?"

“Sure,” says Jesse. Why the fuck not.

Fareeha huffs. "I mean, what  _kind_  of music do you like?"

Jesse looks over at her at that, actually looks. He's taller'n her, has to look down a bit to meet her gaze, but she's got time. They'll be eye-to-eye someday, he bets.

"T' be honest with you, I don't really know yet," Jesse confesses. Music wasn't exactly something he had any say in back with Deadlock, not that there was a ton 'a music to be had. Was nice when there was, though.

"I can send you some," Fareeha offers. She looks forward, then looks back at Jesse, slightly less confident. "I mean, if you want."

"Yeah," says Jesse. "I think I'd like that." And that had been that, start of a storybook friendship right there.

 

*****

 

It happens like it isn’t happening at all. It’s weird and a bit scary when Jesse stops to think about it, but when he’s talking to Fareeha in the moment, it’s no pressure at all. They fall into a routine, greeting each other in the halls when they pass by, sitting together in the mess sometimes if the other one is eating alone.

She seems happy to have someone who actually listens to her, Jesse thinks. Not that his bosses aren’t great, but they’re all in Captain Amari’s camp, telling Fareeha she can do anything she wants while at the same time telling her the military’s too dangerous. Jesse lets her vent, lets her steal the hat off his head or prod at him in public even though he’s typically a fan of his personal space.

(On his own time, Jesse alternately supports her, worries about her, and wonders what he would've done at her age if he'd had the chance to choose what he wanted to do.)

Amari’s always watching. It’s not obvious, that bionic eye of hers, but just knowing about it freaks Jesse out sometimes, like she can see right through him.

“What do the two of you talk about?” Ana asks him during one-on-one training. “You and Fareeha.”

"Oh, y'know," Jesse replies, "kids' stuff." He understands, but he's playing dumb. He's heard it through the grapevine that Amari's been asking around, trying to trip somebody into telling who introduced her precious daughter to Metallica and Guns N' Roses. Jesse ain't fallin' for it. He can't rat on Reyes like that, and Ana'd never believe the truth neither. He ain’t gonna die by Amari’s hand, not today anyway. Not here in the gun range in front of thirteen witnesses.

Ana stares him down, watching him like a hawk through another round of firing. She waits until he's got six holes in the target before speaking again. "About Blackwatch?"

"Never." Jesse's reply is immediate.

Ana tilts her head. "The military?"

"Not if I can help it," Jesse tells her honestly. Ana nods her approval. "Not 'cause I think she ain't cut out for it, though," he adds before Amari can fully turn away. "Takes a lot of grit, going into that line'f work with both eyes open."

He feels a jolt of embarrassment when Ana scoffs, but he stands his ground somehow. "You think she has both eyes open?" Amari asks, a bite to her voice.

"She sees more than most gives her credit for," Jesse argues, tossing in a quick "ma'am" before returning his attention to the range. From the corner of his eye, he catches Ana giving him a peculiar not-quite-smile.

"Good," she says, more to herself than to Jesse, and then they're back to business as usual.

Or, well. Not quite usual, not from that point forward. Most wouldn't hardly notice the changes. Those that do notice don't say nothing about how Captain Amari is suddenly going soft on the idiot cowboy her daughter befriended. Sure, she's their Mama Bear. That doesn’t really account for her “stealing” a scruffy, angry Blackwatch agent for a handful of capital-O Overwatch missions. Says she needs his expertise on the field, whatever that means. Jesse’s willing to try, more for hers and Reyes’ sakes than his own.

They go well, even net him a few medals that pile up in a box under his bed over the years. Seems like with every piece of praise, every hunk of metal or firm handshake or pat on the back, McCree finds the real reason he’s here doing this job. He finds himself looking forward to returning more than leaving for the field.

He feels a good foot taller, the way Amari looks at him after his priorities change.

 

(It seems to make him grow in _everyone's_ estimation according to Fareeha.

( _Reinhardt likes you_ , Fareeha texts him once when Jesse's hemming and hawing about his own worth.

( _Reinhardt likes everyone_ , Jesse texts back with a snort.

( _Torb likes you_ , is Fareeha's immediate response. Jesse's eyebrows nearly shoot off his forehead. _Well_ , comes her next message. _Okay. 'Like' is probably strong_.

(Jesse laughs. _Well now_ , he fires back. _not 100 percent hatred. that's damn near praise_.

( _Fuck off_ , Fareeha replies.

(The next text, sent thirty seconds later, reads, _don't tell mom I told you to fuck off_. Jesse doesn’t respond, guts too twisted up at her ambiguous use of “mom.”)

 

*****

 

Jesse doesn’t realize how wrong he is about him and Fareeha being friends until he’s 22. Doesn’t matter how true his aim is when the group they’re scouting out fights dirty, hitting him and three other Blackwatch agents with some kind of nerve gas. He remembers bits and pieces of being paralyzed on the concrete warehouse floor, and he swears he gave up on breathing for a good minute before Gérard Lacroix's backup team saved their bacon.

The shit burns as it wears off, but he’s gonna live. It hurts more to be conscious, so Jesse sleeps, content to answer yes-no-maybe-so questions every couple hours then keep his eyes shut while he drifts in and out of it.

He can tell it’s dark outside without opening his eyes when he comes ‘round this time, can tell it’s night by the near-deathly silence of the hospital room. Not so much as a squeak of shoes in the hallway outside. Something’s on top of him though, some body, it seems. ‘bout his height, though curled up at a weird angle against his right side. A head on his chest. Heavier than Jesse’s expecting, assuming he’s guessing right about who it is.

He cracks open an eye to confirm his suspicions and finds himself with a face full of black hair. Huh. He’s right but still surprised. He thought Ana’d said Fareeha was spending the month with her dad.

Jesse glances down, getting dizzy just from looking too fast. It hasn’t been that long since they’d last met up, and yet Fareeha seems older, more mature than he’d been at her age. She’s got a sweet leather jacket and boots on. Jesse almost grins at the thought of her and Ana arguing about whether or not it’s just a phase. It‘s amusing how normal their relationship seems sometimes in the midst of all this military, covert ops bullshit.

“Nice jacket,” Jesse manages to croak out, “but ‘m not takin’ the rap for having boots on these bedsheets.”

Fareeha lets out a deep sigh of relief and clings a bit tighter. Jesse winces, coughs a bit. His throat burns more than he thought it would.

“Hey now,” he groans. “’m fine.” Groggily, he gets his right arm around Fareeha’s back, patting her awkwardly on the side. “ ‘s gonna be alright.”

Fareeha buries her face in Jesse’s chest. "I know," she says against his ribcage. She sounds tired, like she cried herself out on the flight over. He wonders what time it is. "Just... I know."

McCree thinks about seventeen, how old he was when he first met Fareeha, how old Fareeha is now. He thinks about all the changes someone can weather and feels a little more grateful for being here in spite of the pain.

He clears his throat. “Hey,” he says again, angling to lighten the mood. “What would Reinhardt say ‘f he walked in ‘n saw you in bed with another guy right now?”

Fareeha makes a wet snorting noise. “Screw you,” she bites out, but her voice angles up like she’s trying not to laugh.

They settle into silence for a few minutes. Jesse shuts his eyes, but now that he’s been awake, sleep is harder to get back to. He stops trying.

Fareeha shuffles around a bit. After a while, she cranes her neck and Jesse finds two dark eyes watching him.

“Jesse,” she says.

“ ‘m still here,” McCree replies, patting her back, “not goin’ anywhere.”

Fareeha makes a face, like she wants to ask something she knows she shouldn’t. “Jesse, did you…”

Jesse raises an eyebrow at her reluctance. “Don’t hold back on my account,” he tells her. If she wants to know about the mission, how he got hurt, he’ll do his best, but there ain’t a lot of blanks he can fill in.

Fareeha nods a small nod, forehead brushing his chest, before looking up at him again.

"Did you have a sister?" Fareeha asks finally. "Before.”

He can’t say he was expecting it, but he ain’t exactly surprised neither. “Makes you say that?” Jesse prods.

“The way you talk sometimes." There's a smile in her voice, but something sadder, too. Rueful. "You're good at bluffing, Jesse, but nobody's that good."

Jesse stares at the ceiling, mentally tracing the web-like cracks just to be looking at something other than Fareeha. He swallows hard. "I used to, yeah." It feels stupid, talking about a dead end. The past isn't going anywhere. Still. Sometimes McCree can't help feeling like it's unfinished. Maybe he needs to talk about, actually tell someone the story instead of having his superior officers fill in the blanks for themselves. "Got separated during an omnic attack when she was five. Told me she died, along with Ma an' Pa."

Fareeha turns away and hugs him tighter. McCree brings up his left hand to wipe at his eyes, instinctively grabbing Fareeha tighter with his right arm.

" _They_ told you," Fareeha repeats after a few minutes of silence. "The authorities?"

"Yeah," says McCree, sounding as wrecked as he feels.

"You don't... you don't know for sure? You didn't - "

"Fareeha, don't." He doesn't want to snap at her, but he will if she keeps walking down that path. "It's finished, okay? It was a million years ago, let the sleeping damn dog lie."

"It was _ten_ ," Fareeha shoots back. "Ten years ago." Jesse's world tilts violently, although that could just be from the morphine.

"It's hardly a lifetime," Fareeha adds, softer than before. "She could still... she could still be out there, maybe." She shifts to look back up at McCree. "What makes you so sure she died?"

Jesse snorts. "Jus' the way life has been goin' in general," he deadpans, twitching his foot to the best of his ability to underline his point. He gives the ceiling another minute of contemplation. He isn't sure how to say it without sounding crazy, especially laid up as he is. "The thing is..."

The thing is, he had looked as soon as he'd had clearance to Overwatch's databases. He's Blackwatch, can poke around without anyone noticing, really. And he can find reports of the omnic attack that took his family, sketchy since Overwatch hadn't fully formed or responded at the time. And he can find his own personal history, the way it would've been before most of it got blacked out and taped red. But the thing is, there's really nothing on any record about María. Not so much as her birth certificate, which is a red fucking flag right there. It looks for all the world like someone covered her tracks, like if McCree didn't know for a fact what her hand in his felt like that there would've never been a María there in the first place.

"There's no files anywhere," Jesse tells Fareeha against his own doubts. "No mentions anywhere, like someone... scrubbed up after her or something."

Fareeha frowns up at him. "Like Overwatch?"

"I don't know," says Jesse with half a shrug. He hasn't had too much time to investigate, what with his own debt to work off.

Fareeha drums her fingers on his stomach and purses her lips, another question waiting to be asked.

"What was her name?" she says right when McCree is on the verge of making her talk.

"María," he tells her, then goes about staring at the ceiling in such a way that she'll get the conversation is over for now. Fareeha lets it drop, stays by his side through the rest of the night until they've both fallen back into sleep.  
 

*****

 

Time off is a foreign concept, and another one of Reyes’ ideas that Jesse isn’t so sure about. He’d gone along with it, though, even asked for the specific dates. It’d been years since he’d celebrated _Día de Muertos,_ and he didn’t feel much like going back home for it, but still. Having the time off was a step in a different direction. The right direction, maybe.

He’s in Oasis with nothing to do but people-watch thinking maybe it was a mistake when his Blackwatch-issued comm rings. He doesn’t recognize the number.

“ ‘llo?” he says, glancing about the square. Maybe there’s a mission nearby they need him on. Maybe _Jefe_ needs him to look something up in the library at the university here…

“Hey, it’s me,” comes Fareeha Amari’s breathless voice. “Are you busy?”

Jesse sits upright, both boots on the ground. “How did you get this number?”

“Jesse, it’s me,” Fareeha sighs.

“Yeah, _I know_ ,” Jesse begins, “but that don’t explain… y’know what, never mind. Aren’t you s’pposed to be in boot camp right now?”

Fareeha scoffs. “Someone’s cranky. I… oh. Have you never taken a vacation before?” Jesse can’t tell if she’s actually concerned or playing at something.

“Who said I was on vacation?” he asks instead.

“Mom mentioned you were taking a personal week,” Fareeha replies.

“I lied, obviously,” McCree lies. He loves Fareeha, he really does, just… something about her dropping in unexpected today has him riled.

“Oh,” says Fareeha, and this time he can tell she feels guilty. “Well. What are you working on? Can you tell me?”

“Yeah, it’s Operation: Mind Your Own Fucking Business,” Jesse says with a brittle laugh.

Ever since she found out about his missing sister, Fareeha’s been nipping at him to look into it. It’s about knowing versus not knowing, she says, like whether Shane lived or died, even though Jesse's always been fine with that ending the way it did. She thinks he should dig deeper, look harder.

(“You need to do it for yourself,” Jesse remembers her saying, breathing out hard through her nose. “I mean. I know that, like, you owe them, and it’s your job,” she’d said, pointing at Reyes and Morrison from across the mess hall. “But you need something outside of being a soldier, you know?"

(“Anyone ever tell you you sound exactly like your mother?” Jesse’d replied sarcastically. He’d gotten a face full of macaroni for his trouble, but at least she dropped the subject.)

Jesse isn’t sure how much deeper he can dig without burying himself in the process. He’s been digging, and he gets nothing every time, every place. In every database, there’s nothing, not even a mention of María’s death. It strikes him as odd, because who would have something to gain from covering up the death of a five-year-old kid? Even with his connections, though, he can only go so far before he hits a stone wall. Dead or alive, María’s a ghost in the wind. He’s better off crawling into a bottle and getting to the bottom of that than doing research in the real world.

“Something for Reyes,” Jesse adds. “Nothing major, yet.”

“Is it why the Talon logo looks like a uterus?” Fareeha asks.

“Jesus,” Jesse swears before he can stop himself. “ ‘d you get dropped on your head when you were a kid?"

“That’s classified information,” Fareeha replies sternly.

“No shitting," Jesse says, doing his damnedest not to laugh. "Gabriel or Morrison?”

“I don’t know,” Fareeha admits, “but if you find it in any of your files, be sure to tell me.”

"You'll be the first to know," Jesse assures her before lowering his voice. “ ‘n how do you know about them?”

He can’t see Fareeha roll her eyes, but he doesn’t have to to know she does. “Everyone who watches the news knows about them,” she says like it’s obvious.

"Not comforting," says Jesse, "but continue."

“They sent a statement to low-level press three days ago after that attack in Grenada,” Fareeha explains. Jesse is and isn’t surprised – she _would_ be looking at the news reports a bit differently than most people her age.

“Which,” Fareeha continues triumphantly, “you would probably know if you were actually in contact with Reyes, or anyone from work. So you’re not working right now.”

Jesse resists the urge to applaud her detective work. “Fine, you caught me,” he says, trying to put some smile into her voice even if he isn’t feeling it. He leans back in his chair. “I’m… here. Nothing doin’.”

“Hmm,” Fareeha hums. “Good,” she adds after a minute.

“Do you… want to talk about basic?” Jesse asks. She hasn’t wanted to vent much since she started training, but maybe that’s the reason she called today. "Made any friends yet?"

"What?" Fareeha squawks, and then, "I have friends!"

Jesse smothers a laugh. "I know, 'm sorry."

"I do!" Fareeha insists. "It's just..."  She lowers her voice, like now she's the one afraid someone will overhear. "They just... talk about Mom so much here sometimes, how inspiring Captain Amari is for everyone in the forces."

"Oh," says Jesse, feeling a pit form in his stomach. He gets it. His Number One Rule has and always will be treating Fareeha as her own person. She's not just an extension of Ana. He's never had that problem, being seen as just his parents' kid, but he can see how much it hurts her, how much she doubts people liking her for her own self. He isn't sure how to get that across in words, though.

"You know," he tries, "you can call me any time. Whether I'm actin' like a prick or not."

Fareeha laughs, sharp and quick. "I do," she says. "I mean, thank you."

Jesse taps his foot against the ground a few times, letting the quiet settle between them.

"So what are you doing tonight?" Fareeha asks. "Are you in a big city? I bet you could find people celebrating whatever it is you want to celebrate."

McCree thinks about it, about what the first of November means and _el día de los angelitos._

"I'm good," he tells Fareeha. "For now. I'm good bein' alone fer a while."

 

*****

 

True to form, everything goes down the drain again. Jesse knows that feeling, the way something hot gnaws on your bones, flames dancing up your spine and setting the world at a tilt. Everyone is wound too tight, liable to snap, himself included. Jesse knows that feeling, of being trapped with no way out.

Except this time, Jesse realizes. This time he sees an out, and he's allowed to take it. This time, Jesse gets the hell out of dodge all on his own, gets out before his back is pressed into another corner. 

He’s back in the States, scraping through the Badlands ( _mako sica_ , bad road) like a tourist, and trying to shake the feeling that he’s being watched when his comm goes off. It's a comm he rarely used, one the rest of the organization won't come looking for. Besides them having bigger fish to fry, Amari herself had put it in his hands.

( _"Just in case we need to get ahold of you," she said, somehow expecting the disappearing act he intended to pull._

_(Jesse frowned down at her. He didn’t come in with no possessions; he isn’t sure how he feels about leaving with something of theirs _. Like maybe he’ll always be owing a debt, he guesses.__

( _"All due respect, ma'am," he'd replied, voice low, unsure of who had ears on them, "I won't exactly be workin' fer you_ _anymore."_

( _"I never said anything about work," Ana had said as she forced his fingers to close around the piece of tech._ )

Jesse feels the hair on the back of his neck raise. Ana's the only person he knows who has the number, and he doubts she'd be calling for anything less than the world ending. He's bracing for the worst as he grumbles his "hello."

There's a slight inhale on the other end of the line, a breath of a pause.

"Jesse," says Fareeha, and he knows. He folds, finding himself on his ass on the ground before he knows which side is up.

“Jesse,” Fareeha says again at his silence, and this time she’s angry. “Where are you?”

“I’m not…” Jesse isn’t sure what he is right now. “I’m in the States. Hiding. What happened?”

“No one could tell me where you were,” Fareeha continues, static twisting her voice, making it even harsher. “You didn’t have an official phone, and Gabriel won’t talk to me about you, and Jack doesn’t want to see me – ”

“ _Fareeha_ ,” Jesse interrupts. “I’m fine. Just tell me what happened.”

She trails off. Jesse can picture her blinking back the tears, cradling the comm closer to her ear. “She was on a mission. A hostage situation, she didn’t want to leave anyone behind.”

Jesse inhales and exhales slowly before getting to his feet again. It cuts through him then, right to the bone. He didn't think anyone would care once he left. He didn't think anyone would need him, didn't think about what would come after.

“Where are ya’?” he asks, starting to walk back the way he came. “Where you gonna’ be, I mean,” he amends. “I’ll get there. Jus’ tell me where you need me.”

Fareeha clears her throat, almost hiding a small sniffle. “Okay,” she says. “I… um… okay.” She clams up, though.

“You need help organizin’ stuff?” Jesse asks, hoping to prompt her. He’s thinking he’d rather stick needles in his right eye than have to be the one to plan Ana Amari’s funeral, but he has to offer. He can’t make Fareeha shoulder that alone.

“Maybe,” Fareeha replies. “Dad is… Dad’s helping, I mean. I just…” Jesse can picture her shaking her head to clear her mind. “Cairo. We’re making arrangements in Cairo. I’m flying in tomorrow afternoon. We can… just… be here. Please,” she adds, voice soft in a way Jesse doesn’t think he’s ever heard before. She might as well've taken a knife to his heart.

“Yeah,” he says. He knows he’s walking back into hell. Some of those Blackwatch guys might kill him on sight. He should trust Reyes to have his back, even in light of his resignation, but he doesn’t. He should tell her no, get further and further off the grid until he’s just a speck on the horizon.

“ ‘ll let ya’ know when I get in,” he says instead.

 

*****

 

Things keep going downhill, gaining momentum with horrifying speed. Ana dies, Reinhardt gets the boot, Gabe and Morrison make a fucking crater of the Swiss headquarters, and everything unravels. Not that it wasn’t already jacked up, Jesse knows, looking from the inside out as he had been.

Now though, from the outside in, Jesse McCree is a wanted man. He wants to be more surprised than he is. Was only a matter of time, wasn’t it? He’s grateful for Blackwatch and Overwatch, for the people he met and everything he learned there, but he would have been a fool to think working for them would be a permanent fix.

Still, he has what they gave him. He knows he isn’t going back to his old ways, knows he doesn’t have to be a crook to be useful in a crooked world.

Jesse McCree sets out with a bounty on his head and something like determination to keep moving forward in his bones.

  

*****

 

(Jesse McCree saw the writing on the wall and decided to hightail it. Simple as that.

(Phrasin' it that way does him a disservice, Fareeha insists.

("You make it sound like an accident," she whispers down the line, years after tracing the tangled trail he left.

("Somethin' like that," Jesse replies, sounding a lot calmer than he feels.

(She pauses. "Not to put too fine a point on it," Fareeha begins, words measured, "but how many other agents in your division got to leave voluntarily?"

(He’s glad Fareeha can’t see the way he shudders at that.) 

 

*****

 

María was five when she disappeared. Another decade racks up on their estrangement.

Blood or not, Jesse knew her for five years before he disappeared. If she is still out there, what kind of claim does he even have on her? Would she remember him, remember that she even had a brother if he turned up on her doorstep?

He’s not sure he has anything to offer her, Jesse thinks. Maybe he could have been someone she was proud of when he was with Overwatch. Now though. He’s washed most of the blood off his hands, made peace with what he’s done, but he’s still on the run without an end in sight.

“She wouldn’t wanna see me anyway,” he says the next time Fareeha brings it up. They talk without mentioning names, both worried about the security of his contraband comm. “Probably married, got kids an’ a nice job,” Jesse rambles, watching the sunlight bounce off the waters from the Jacksonville pier. It’s nice to think she’s out there somewhere, even if he doubts it. “She wouldn’t want… she wouldn’t…”

“She would,” says Fareeha. The intensity of it startles Jesse. “She would,” she adds again, softer.

Jesse swallows, scratching at his beard. "Why's that?"

"Because family - " is all Jesse gets before their connection shorts out.

(He spends the rest of the night wondering if Fareeha's alright. He doesn't try calling, though. Might not be safe, he tells himself. Might be better if they try a different line in the next town he rolls through.)

 

(He spends the rest of the night trying to shake the feeling that he abandoned one more sister.)

 

*****

 

Sometimes you put an ear to the ground and come up with a head full of dust.

He thought it might be easier, chasing shadows havin' had to become a shadow himself. Instead Jesse’s finding too many leads throughout the years, too many whispered cryptic names. The faceless soldier with a “76” on his jacket. The shrike hunting from the shadows of Egypt. The way “sombra” is said in some parts like it’s a person and not just an absence of light. The wraith. The evening spider. That’s not even scratching at the Talon soldiers from the train, the ones that knew him by name, that were using the Blackwatch playbook. Little bit of torture was their little bit of pleasure, apparently.

(It’s no surprise, Jesse thinks. Something bad was waiting in their wings, pulling strings behind the scenes for years. He thinks of the way those years hollowed out Reyes, and he thinks he understands. Doesn’t mean it don’t make him reach for the bottle, though.)

There’s all these parts in motion, Jesse recognizes, and somehow underneath the pieces, the board is moving. There’s something bigger going on behind the scenes, bigger than Talon, bigger than Overwatch. He doesn't know what's coincidence and what's connected. He can’t make heads or tails of it, would have to find a better angle of attack to really investigate. It’d be slow goin', a lot of circling back to move forward.

Jesse can’t be assed. That maze wasn't meant for him. There’s too many loose ends, too many stories intersecting with his own. He’d be chasing his tail after two weeks. He sticks with what he's best at -- keeping his head down and surviving.

He still can’t turn anything up on María. Nothing past or present, nothing online or in the scarce old format files he’s been able to get his hands on. She doesn’t exist anymore outside of his memory. Might as well be asking the stars for guidance, Jesse thinks as he waits for night to fall in the desert. Or maybe he should ask the shadows for help. The universe seems to have more sensible answers than the people that live in it.

 

*****

 

“I wouldn’t know her anymore if she stopped me dead in the street and shot me,” Jesse says next time Fareeha asks, slamming his second bottle of beer down on their table at the shabby taqueria.

Fareeha laughs, dark and bitter. The sound makes Jesse’s stomach curdle a bit. He’d been trying to make her laugh, sure, just… not quite like that. It's been years since they'd last seen each other in person, paths finally crossing this once while they're both traveling for work.

Fareeha keeps looking at him funny, like she has a question she wants to ask but can’t quite spit out. He doesn’t invite her to this time. It’s his birthday. He’s closing in on 40, which is further than he thought he’d make it. He’s still got his eyes, all his teeth in his head and all… well, most his limbs, somehow. He’s pointedly ignoring the sad look that flits across Fareeha’s face whenever she eyes the drape of his serape, covering what’s left of his left arm. He doesn’t wanna deal with the real shit today. So sue him.

(It's been years since Overwatch disbanded, since Ana... well. Since Ana. But that doesn't mean Fareeha's had it any easier, wrestling with a goal that suddenly don't exist anymore. Maybe that's crueler than never having a choice in the first place, Jesse thinks.)

“Point is,” he continues, really looking hard at Fareeha, “I’m never going to find her.”

Fareeha shrugs, staring back at him with equal strength. “So maybe she can find you.”

A meaner man might point out Fareeha is projecting, pushing him to reconnect with what might be left of his family when she's lost a big piece of hers not so long ago.

“Well then,” Jesse says instead, shooting her a sly grin, “better get on gettin’ a nicer picture on my ‘Wanted’ posters.”

Fareeha smiles, wrinkling her nose at him. The tattoo under her eye crinkles, like her mother, only livelier, not quite as burdened. His heart zings at the sight.

“Y’ got time fer another round?” Jesse asks, waving his empty bottle in Fareeha’s direction. “You’re buyin’.” It's a terrible idea, he knows, and he's gonna have to remember to grab a fuckton of water on his way out of town or else risk getting dehydrated on the road. He needs time, though. More time. That's all.

Fareeha’s look turns solemn. “A man drink like that,” she intones, making her accent as American as possible, “and he is going to die.”

Jesse ruins the response by cracking up. “When?” he asks, finishing the quote before cackling again. “Goddamn,” he adds, reaching up to wipe a tear away from his eye, “I knew you were my favorite fer a reason.”

Fareeha watches him pick at the label on his bottle, her eyes getting sadder by the second. There’s something a little bit like fear mixed there, too. McCree bets she don’t even realize she’s showing it. Her eyes dart to the door, at the family coming in, then back to their tabletop.

Jesse sets his bottle down, then reaches over to punch her gently on the shoulder. “Hey,” he says, waiting until he has her full attention before smiling. “Always will be, too.”

Fareeha’s answering grin is the best present he could ask for. She punches his arm in response; Jesse doesn’t have to fake a wince like he used to. Damn but she grew up strong. Maybe a little too strong.

“I’ll try to take that as a compliment,” she jokes, knee bumping against his under the table. “One more, but I’m not going to let you drink supper.”

McCree gives her a lazy salute. “Yes, ma’am.” Three rounds on any other day would hardly be enough, but today he’ll survive. Three’s all he needs so long as he isn’t alone.

 

*****

 

McCree moves slow. He knows it. It's part of why he has to keep at it, keep traveling the land. That and the target painted on his back. He can't run so fast and far as his enemies, but he can shake a good few of them off by never stopping in one place for too long.

It works. It's always worked, for lining up shots, for rolling with the punches. Because he isn't speeding along, he's quick to adapt, quick to catch the bigger picture.

He's quick to think of his own new horrors, though. His own goddamn mind moves faster than the rest of him, and it burns him up. He's alone with only his thoughts for company, thoughts that circle and pick at him like vultures. He was never anything to Gabe but a soldier. Reyes drove him away and didn't stop Jesse from leaving; McCree would be a fool to think  _Jefe_  was doing it for his own good.

He was never meant to rise in the ranks, never good for much besides keeping his head down and surviving. He isn't so much good at hiding as it is no one but Fareeha is looking for him, remembers and wants to reach out for him.

It's hard to split the difference between his work and his life because it's all the good he's had wrapped up in one. He can't separate because he didn't have a personal life, none that wasn't skeletons and ghosts anyway.

It’s a dance, keeping up to his thoughts, moving like they do, and he’s tired, but they’d eat him alive if he stopped (at least while he's sober) so he doesn’t. One person left that cares is still a star to hitch your wagon to. There's vultures, but he ain't dead yet.

 

*****

 

It's a fool's errand. It's one voice out of a billion-and-something, but damn it, somebody has to say _something_.

It's worth a shot, Jesse tells himself as he sends his first article written as 'Joel Morricone' out into the world. Maybe it's dumb, calling attention to himself like that, but maybe somebody who wants to make a difference will see. He's doing what he can to bring justice back to the street, but still. Somebody needs to tell the masses out there that they can make a difference, Overwatch or not. Sometimes the law don't shake out like it should, and decisions shouldn't go unchecked.

(It's stupid. Even if she saw it, María probably wouldn't get the reference, wouldn't connect her long-absent brother to a list of cowboy clichés. Still, doesn't hurt to talk himself up a bit, make this mysterious gunslinger look like somebody worthwhile.)

 

(The comment from site user RocketQueen that's just a string of eye-rolling emojis makes the whole publication worth it, Jesse thinks.)

 

*****

 

"F'reeha, do you ever..."

Jesse doesn't lose his train of thought. More like several of 'em bash into each other and jump the tracks. Alcohol. Ya' gotta love it.

It's stupid. He doesn't know why he called. He was drunk, and missing his family, but that's hardly a hardy cause now that the pad is up and runnin', now that his mouth is up and runnin'. He's supposed to be layin’ low. This line probably ain't the most secure. But he can't let go, not now that she's here, and he had a question worth asking. He thinks.

Fareeha watches on the screen, lips pressed in a thin line. She looks tired. Jesse hears noise in her background and wonders where work has her at tonight.

"Do I ever..." Fareeha prompts, sounding more curious than anything, and Jesse realizes he was expectin' anger, or impatience. But look. She wants to talk. She wants to listen to a drunkard cowboy's rambling. Jesse could kiss her.

"D'you forgive me for leavin'?" Jesse asks. Sure as shit wasn't his original question, not that he remembers anyway, but it's the one comin' out. "Before, when everything..." He sniffs. "Before."

Fareeha's look has gone soft, but it ain't pity. "Jesse."

"I'm jus’ sayin'," he continues. "I just... shoulda done more for ya' back when everything fell apart. I shoulda..." He should've challenged Reyes' authority. He should've stayed when Overwatch needed him the most. He shouldn't've chosen himself. He had to save himself, had to cut ties before the ties cut him, but still he shouldn't... he should have...

"I can watch my own back, Jesse," Fareeha tells him, stating it nicely. Like a fact. Because it is. She can take care of herself just fine, always could.

"I know," says Jesse, nodding, and he does. "Doesn't mean you should have t', though. Oughta have someone else you can trust to keep an eye on things when yer needin' a break."

"You mean like Mom?" Jesse's eyes are tired, but he catches the way her expression changes. There's a new, guarded edge to her voice and about her face. 

Jesse frowns at the screen. "Maybe," he tries out, testing the waters. "Not that your pa ain't great, but..."

Fareeha makes a noise, but she don't say nothing. Her expression doesn't change.

There's a pause then, not really much of anything. But it's a pause where there shouldn't have been one, and Jesse knows in one sharp instant what it is Fareeha isn't saying. The truth sets on him like a bear trap. Its cold metal teeth snap shut, ripping into him.

"Jesse, I'm - "

"I know," he says, cutting her off before she can start. Ain't no point in playing dumb. "I know, Fareeha." His right hand goes to cover his eyes. Shit, if he ain't mad. It blooms in him the way pain would, pulsing out further into his veins with every jackhammer of his heart. He should've known for as much as Amari cared for him, he was never a drop in the bucket compared to Fareeha, her flesh and blood. But he knows it's nobody's fault, Fareeha's least of all. It can't be. He knows if it were in her hands, she woulda told him.

( _"I wanted you to meet my daughter, Sheriff," says the man on the silver screen. "She's a good cook, a mighty fine looking girl. Takes after her dear, departed mother."_

( _"Mother died, huh?" says Jim Garner._

( _"No," says the mayor, "she just departed," and thirteen-year-old Fareeha laughs for the first time Jesse's ever heard._ ) ** **  
****

"Are you okay?" Fareeha asks after an awkward silence. There's a tremor to her voice, or maybe Jesse's just imagining what he wants to hear. It's hard to tell at this point.

"Sure," Jesse lies. He can't look up, can't turn his face back to the screen after that. He can feel Fareeha's watching eyes, focus unbroken until, in the distance, a set of sirens starts to blare.

"Jesse, I have to - "

"Go," he says, nodding so she can see he's fine. He understands, even makes a token gesture to meet her tired stare. He ends up looking more at her shoulder than her face. "Take care now, alright?"

"I will," Fareeha replies, voice softer again. "And you do, too, Jesse."

McCree makes himself laugh, something short and ugly that gets stuck in his throat halfway through. "No promises. Love you." He ends the call.

 

*****

 

He can’t shake the feeling that he’s being watched. 

Jesse needs to focus. He needs to regroup, figure out where to begin or re-begin or whatever try it is he’s on at this point in the search. He can’t.

He’s tired. Jesse can’t shake the sense that a clock is ticking, time weighing on him heavier than before. Not even what’d be considered middle age, but he feels a good century older. Man wasn't made for that much change that fast. He’d lived lifetimes by the time he hit 35, and at 37 he’s spinning his wheels.

It’s been almost 25 years. The longer he goes without turning up any leads, the more he feels like it isn’t worth it. It’s a waste to keep walking down that path.

He wants to see Fareeha again. He wants Ana to find him, as much for Fareeha as for himself. He wants _Jefe_ to be alive and to have his head on straight again.

Instead, he keeps moving forward. He’s come far enough to know there’s nothing behind him worth going back for.

 

*****

 

It starts - as things now do - with Reinhardt. A blip of a voice message left on McCree's comm that makes Jesse think maybe the other man's gotten confused in his old age. They were never that close; friendly, sure, but not like what he had with Reyes or Amari.

Regardless, the message exists. A boisterous hello, a “Fareeha says you’re doing well.” Sounds like him and the old man have similar ideas, traveling the world to fight dragons since Overwatch isn’t around to do the same. “We will have to trade stories some time,” Reinhardt commands. McCree thinks he wouldn’t mind that.

There's another message from the same line, a young woman who says she's a Lindholm and that her pa and Reinhardt want to know if he's ever in need of assistance. Jesse smiles, but he doesn't return their calls, not just yet.

Angie rings a few weeks later, having heard about his arm from Fareeha. She offers to look at it off the record; Jesse can't chance traveling to Europe at the moment, but he tells the good doctor that he'll keep her in mind, and he means it.

Lena finds him next, going a mile a minute about the girl she met, about moving in together, about everyone she’s kept in touch with. Torbjörn himself calls as well, with a gruff but rambling update on all of his kids and his opinions of how all of the old guard are faring.

Genji’s call gets returned within minutes. The cyborg still isn’t big on small talk, but he’s more willing to chat than McCree remembers, though still prone to letting Jesse ramble. He’s at a monastery, which is a weird mental image if ever there was one, especially when Genji is threatening to kick McCree’s ass at Sheriff. It’s good, though, Jesse thinks. At least something good came out of their group disbanding. 

Even Winston manages to check in on him. The scientist is awkward, but he tries, and Jesse would never fault him for that. He's glad to hear Winston is holding down the old base, glad someone is getting some use out of the place even if it tugs his heartstrings a bit to think of the big guy all alone up there.

Maybe it’s mostly gone now, but it was real. Jesse remembers it. He's never really been alone, not with the family he used to have hanging in the back of his mind. Maybe it’s okay to reach out and grab on to some of that.

 

*****

 

Jesse is in Indiana when the recall goes out. He’d rambled there on a hunch, not really knowing where his feet were going but willing to wait and find out regardless.

At any rate, he’s standing in a goddamn cornfield, startled stupid by the sudden pinging of his comm on his ear when the pieces in his brain come together in a rapid-fire click-click-click. Something like  _Indiana Overwatch Morrison soldier enhancement super soldier twenty-seventy-six_ , and shit. Soldier: 76 is Jack Morrison, has to be, and ain’t that a kick in the teeth? Still, he must have his reasons for keeping his nose to the ground. Jesse can’t judge. Golden Geezer just has the luxury of playing dead while Jesse’s gotta skulk around with a bounty on his head. He wonders if Fareeha knows.

But for the first time in a long time, he thinks maybe. If these people he thought were dead are still kicking, then who’s to say María isn’t out there, a new name waiting to be put to a familiar face.

Jesse replays Winston’s message, then plays it again and again long into the night. His heart aches. Damn straight they all lost a family. He’s glad he’s not the only one ready and willing to right wrongs in the face of illegality.

That said, Jesse knows, he moves slow. He decides that night that he’ll get back there in his own time. Soon, hopefully. But not now.

He decides to meander south of the border, head toward Dorado. No rush such as it was, but something about President Portero’s deposition don’t quite sit right with him. Bit big for him, but it could be something worth sticking his nose into before he hops continents.

That, and he’s heard Soldier: 76’s been spotted in those parts more frequently than most. Maybe the old man has a base there. Jesse doesn’t have a clue what he’s going to say when he confronts Jack, but he’s got plenty of time to think. Maybe he’s ready to hear what happened to Gabe, ready to find out if Jack knows exactly what crawled in _Jefe_ ’s head and died. Then again, maybe Jesse’s happier not knowing. Maybe too many men already stared into the abyss and got stared back at.

He ignores the call for now. Better not to drag his former family into whatever fine mess he’s about to find. Besides, he’s only ever been good at leaving home. He isn’t sure he knows how to go back to one.

 

*****

 

Getting blackout drunk every Christmas is just the kind of sentimental that’s stupid enough to get Jesse killed, and he knows it. Still, hasn’t happened yet. Must be the spirit of the season bringing out the good in everyone. More likely is that nobody gives a shit about a pathetic cowboy passed out on the bar. Calaveras is an old haunt, an all-but-guaranteed safe place for a wanted man to get hammered.

(He’d called Fareeha the day before to let her know where he went, so close yet so far away for the holiday. Jesse'll be the first to admit he'd been a bit...  _bristly_ , not sayin' much more than he needed to in the conversation. Still. He misses her; ain’t nothing gonna change that for long in this world. Besides, at this point'n time, better it be Fareeha on the other end of the line than Ana.)

Calaveras is, unfortunately, a safe place for plenty of other wanted men to get hammered, and not many of them are as mellow as McCree. It’s how he finds himself jostled awake by a bar fight. Not one he seems to be involved in personally, thank Jesus, so he gets his feet under him, gets some money on the counter before packing it up to run. He doubts any patrons would’ve called the cops, but there’s eyes and ears everywhere.

“HEY!” yells a woman from the end of the bar.

Jesse glances over his shoulder as he goes. He may be shit-faced and running into every table and chair in his path, but he’s sure she’s far enough away that he wouldn’t have jostled her or the drink still in her hand. She’s very obviously staring at him, though. The skin on the back of his neck prickles. Jesse turns and keeps moving forward, shouts from the fight and something like “¡ _Joel, tu puta densa_!” ringing in his ears as he goes.

He makes it to the door and outside, unsteady but unchallenged. It’s a Christmas miracle. He takes stock of the square he managed to get to despite the people running into him. He looks left, looks right, weighing his options.

He looks left again, and the woman from the bar is directly in front of him.

"Jesus," McCree swears, tripping backwards a step.

The woman tsks, then grabs his arm. "Come on," she says, sprinting before McCree can argue. She pulls him through the square, down cobblestone alleys as the sound of sirens grow in the distance. If he had more of his wits about him, McCree thinks he ought to track their path in case he needs to escape later. As the situation were, though, he stops a few minutes later when he thinks they're far enough along for it to be safe.

"Whoa partner," Jesse says, finally grabbing her arm in return, pulling her to a stop. She shakes him off and turns to glare at him. "Not that I don't appreciate the rescue, but..."

He looks at her, then, really looks at her. She's got a punk-y look, not quite as neon as _Muertos_ ' usual get-up, but close with the half-shaved and painted head. She's pretty, maybe a few years younger than him though she wears it better. McCree has never seen this woman before in his life, and yet...

Jesse squints down at her. “I know you?”

The woman stares back. There’s a lot in her eyes for Jesse to unpack – reluctance, a bit of sorrow, frustration. Hope, though. Hope’s the main one coming through. She doesn’t say nothing, which is odd. Jesse’d thought after the way she’d cornered him and dragged him cross the fort and back she’d have something to say. She’s silent, watching him. A few flakes of snow start to swirl in the air around them.

She’s shorter than him by a good few inches. There’s a beauty mark under her left eye. Lots of girls have those, Jesse tells himself to stall his racing heart. Could just be part of her makeup.

“María?” he asks in spite of all his doubt.

Her eyes light up in an instant, better than any damn tree or store display.

She schools her look into something cooler just as quickly. “Ey,” she says, the start of a smirk tugging at her lips. “Look at where you are,  _vaquero_. That could be any of the women here and you guessed lucky.”

Jesse snorts, tips his hat down in a mocking apology. “Ah. Well, mighty sorry then, ma’am,” he says. Two can play that game. “Must be the alcohol talkin’. Y’know, for a second there I could’a sworn you looked like my sis- ”

María’s arms are around his waist before Jesse can finish his sentence. María, because it has to be her. There’s no other explanation, no reason for a stranger to be burying their face in his serape. Jesse wraps his arms around her in kind, closing his eyes.

“You’re a hard man to find,  _Señor McCree_ ,” she says, teasing voice muffled. The words punch into Jesse’s chest, the knowledge that she was looking for him too making his eyes sting.

“Could say the same thing ‘bout you,” Jesse replies, wondering briefly how it is she knows his new name. He moves to hook his chin over the top of her head and bumps into a metal plate for his troubles. Huh. Guess it wasn’t just stripes of paint on the shaved side.

“Hell of a fashion statement there,” Jesse says, trying to ignore the ice forming in his veins at the sight of those bars winding down the back of her neck, biting into her skull and spine. That’s a particular stretch of bad road, and he knows it. Sis is in some serious shit, apparently. He’s ain’t saying anything though, not on Christmas. Not on the first time he’s seeing her in 25 years. "I like the color, though."

María pulls back to look up at him. “Look who’s talking,” she replies, tugging with both hands at his serape. She looks like she’s trying to act judgmental, but she can’t stop smiling. It’s a nice look on her. She should always be smiling, Jesse thinks. “Aren’t you a little old to be a cowboy?”

Jesse gives her his smuggest smile, removing his hat and placing it on her head without breaking eye contact. “Don’t knock it ‘til ya try it,” he advises before breaking into a grin again.

María leans back and laughs. McCree simply watches, snow fluttering around her. He loves that she can still laugh like that despite everything they’ve been through.

He doesn’t know where to go from here, McCree realizes, didn’t think about what would come after. He spent so long thinking maybe, thinking in “ifs” and not “whens” that he isn’t prepared for what happens next.

“Listen,” he says. They gotta start somewhere. He didn’t rent a room anywhere yet, was going to if he didn’t sleep through the night at the bar, but it’s something tangible, a place where they can sit and talk. “I don’t got anywhere to go back to yet, but if you want to go somewhere…”

María waves off wherever that train of thought was headed, grabbing his arm again. “Allow me, _hermano_ ,” she says, pulling him along. She tosses an especially pleased look up at him. “Mexico is big, but for you, it is going to be very big.”

Jesse laughs harder than he has all year. “Good taste runs in the family then,” he says, falling into step beside her. It feels strange, saying that to a near-complete stranger. He glances down at the grip she has now on his hand. “ ‘s different, isn’t it, me trailin’ you around fer a change?”

María looks back at him, then slows a step so they’re walking side by side. She loops her left arm in his right. “I used to do that?” she asks.

Jesse hums his assent, lighting a cigar amid the swirling flakes. “You can lead if you want, though,” he says. “A man as slow as me could get used to that.”

María smiles and doesn’t leave his side.

 

**Author's Note:**

> (Not pictured: The fallout when he realizes she’s working with a terrorist organization and one of her cohorts is his old mentor. They can get past it, though! It's Christmas!)
> 
>  **Jesse** : I’m going to Dorado to look for Soldier: 76 instead of going to look for Ana or rejoining Overwatch.  
>  **S:76** : I’m leaving Dorado to look for Ana so we can go rejoin Overwatch.  
>  **Jesse** : _Fuck y’all._
> 
>  
> 
>  **My Dumb Cowboy Movie References**  
>  * "Did Shane live or die" is a debate from - believe is or not - _Shane_ (1953).  
>  * "Little bit of torture was their little bit of pleasure" is paraphrased from _Lemonade Joe (The Horse Opera)_.  
>  * "The maze wasn't meant for him" is from _Westworld_ (the TV show, not the movie, though both are quality).  
>  * The "A man drink like that and don't eat..." exchange is from _Blazing Saddles_.  
>  * _Sheriff_ isn't a movie, but it is a hard-to-find Nintendo arcade game.  
>  * The "Takes after her dear, departed mother" exchange is from _Support Your Local Sheriff!_  
>  * "Mexico is big, but for you it is going to be very big!" is from Sergio Leone’s _Duck, You Sucker! (A Fistful of Dynamite)_
> 
> My fatal flaw is liking Westerns but loving parodies/deconstructions of Westerns. Also, sorry my Spanish is rusty (apart from swearing and telling people, "Sorry, my Spanish is rusty.").


End file.
